Can You Feel It?
by Lone Wolf 122290
Summary: Raven is reserved in her emotions, barley able to understand happiness and that is one of the easist for a teenager. Will she ever understand love?
1. Birthday

Chapter One

A young woman named Raven emerged from her bedroom, her face was drawn into a tight slight frown, but that was light for her. Her purple eyes weren't as sad as they normally were, and her purple hair that was the color of a newly blossomed iris.

Her purple hair didn't look horrible against her midnight blue cloak, and hood. Her gold and black belt hung loosely at her waist and the red clasp that held the cloak boasted a crow. It was her family's emblem, a demon emblem. She wasn't proud of it, but she wore it all the same.

She was fit for a young woman, her arms were muscular, and her legs top. A slight six pack shone through her tight tunic, and her fists showed scars from fights that had been lost.

Raven walked slowly down the hall way into the kitchen, where she was almost sure that everyone was. She felt like enjoying people for the first time in many days.

The sun rose in the east, and it illuminated the all purpose room, where most of the inhabitance of the tower spent most of their time. Everyone expect Raven, and she tried to avoid it as much as possible. It was much too loud.

But none the less, Raven paraded down the stairs, and she grinned weakly, but to her, that was just as good as wonderful beam from her happy friend Starfire. She was in a semi good mood, it was her sixteenth birthday, and she was expecting interaction with her friends.

It was odd for her to be looking foreword to interaction. Normally the only thing she did with her fellow teen super hero peers was meditate with Starfire, and that was only when the beautiful alien wished to sit down and calm down.

That was not something she was apt to do. She was often jumping around, and celebrating. What she was celebrating, Raven never knew. She had never found anything to celebrate, other than the first time that they had beaten Slade. That had been a mistake. Both Beast Boy, and Cyborg had taken her captive, and dragged her to the counter, and they had fought over tofu, and meat.

"Happy Birthday, friend!" a bright voice boomed through the room. Raven winced, and dreaded that she had come in the room at all. She hadn't visited it in a few days.

Raven turned slowly towards the couch, and faced all of her friends. She scanned their minds easily with her powers. That was the easiest thing that she could do. Moving, shield, and disappearing into darkness, wasn't hard either, but it was much more difficult.

She found that Starfire was just plain happy, and bubbling over with happiness, and Beast Boy was surprised, and confused, and Raven caught a glimpse of herself in her room. So she found that he must have thought that she would be spending her birthday in her room.

She turned to Cyborg, but then withdrew her power. She had never been able to read his mind. The robot part stopped her, for it wasn't natural. She could move it, but she could not penetrate it.

There was no reason to even waste her energy on him. Ever since he had first met her he had shielded his mind from her, and she had given up on trying to break down his mental shields long ago. On her fourteenth birthday in fact.

"It's you're birthday?" Beast Boy asked surprised over that fact too. Robin raised and eye brow, with only led to his mask going up with it, for his mask covered his eyebrows. He reminded her of Slade in that matter. He never took his mask off, while none of the other Titans wore them. Was there something that he was hiding?

"Happy birthday Rae!" the voice that was Cyborg's yelled. He was grilling bacon, and it smelled good, but the grease also made Raven's stomach turn.

"Bacon!" Beast Boy yelled, running over towards the stove with his hands in the air. "No way, you had real meat yesterday! It's my turn, and I want Tofu!" He was yelling, and Raven winced at how loud it voice was. Starfire giggled, and coved her mouth. Robin sighed and tried to ignore them. Raven felt bile rise in her stomach. She wasn't expecting a party on her birthday, but she didn't want this.

"How about I make breakfast?" she asked, forcing her voice to be calm, and crisp. Both of the boys stopped, and Beast Boy looked up and her, and Cyborg down. Both looked surprised, and Raven didn't need to read either or their minds to know that.

"May I help friend?" Starfire said, batting her eyelashes. She looked to cook but, her food made her, and her friends gag, though she would never admit it.

"How 'bout we let Raven handle this Star," Robin said, gently resting a hand on Starfire's shoulder. Raven glared at where the two bodies met. The two on them were constantly acting like lovebirds, but when confronted they denied it.

Raven wished that she could be like that sometimes, but then her inner, empty, self took over and she didn't remember even felling that, and if she did, she was certain that she couldn't fell such passion, without hurting anyone, or herself.

Starfire, grabbed Robin's hand, and they walked over to the couch to play on Cyborg's game council. Cyborg scowled at them, and nearly threw up at how bad Starfire was.

"Man, what are you going to make?" Beast Boy asked, and Raven frowned at him.

"I've told you before, I respect that you don't eat meat, and I expect you to respect that I don't eat fake meat." Her voice cracked while she talked, and she turned around just as Cyborg punched Beast Boy. She growled at the conversation that was going on between the two of them.

Raven tossed together a small dish from Azarath, it was nothing special, and it was a small stew that contained many herbs and a few small slices of meat, vegetables, and mint water. The smells erupted from the pot, and Raven instantly started to float in her own peace.

_It just might be a good day,_ she thought to herself, happily. _I haven't had a good day in a long time. Not since..._ her mind drifted back, and then it finally settled on the day when Cyborg had come back from the HIVE. That wasn't it... she went further still, and the pictured flashed underneath her eyelids.

_Since I left home._ Her smile faded, and she remembered her mother's face. It was beautiful, but stupid. Stupid to love her father, and for that Raven always had a seed of hate planted in her mind towards that woman.

"What smells good?" Starfire asked, as Raven moved the bowl to the table with her power, the black light that was really noting more than darkness surrounded it, until the darkness flowed back into her hand.

"Herbal Tea," she poured a cup full for everyone expect Beat Boy who hated it, and he was the only one not eating the breakfast that Raven as made.

"This is really good!" Cyborg shouted, and he downed another bowl. Raven turned her gaze to him, and it held absolutely no emotion.

"Thank you," she said, coolly. "Don't eat it all." She sat down and filled a small bowl for herself.

"You used meat man," Beast Boy said annoyed. Raven looked up at his and glared.


	2. Gifts

Chapter Two

Cyborg looked at the key that lay in the middle of his palm. It seemed so small, but he hoped that Raven would see the meaning behind it.

It was one of the two keys to the T-car, and he was giving it to Raven, the one person who had hated the car to begin with, and then had helped rebuild it...out of friendship. She was not one for friendship.

The key itself was nothing special, and the only thing on surface value that Raven might like was the black background with the midnight blue flames licking up the sides. She might not like it for what if represented (though he doubted that she would miss the meaning) but she might like its face value.

He sighed at such a small gift, and felt slightly guilty. Both Robin and Starfire had combined money and had gotten Raven a gold bracelet with her favorite verse from Edgar Allen Poe's _The Raven_ engraved on it.

The sixteenth verse in fact. The one where the speaker was calling out to the Raven asking which demon had sent him. Cyborg hadn't been fond of it, but Raven was often found muttering it under her breath.

Once when they were working on the T- car together, she had insisted on taping all of Edgar Allen Poe's poems and then listening to them, reciting them, just as she has recited them to make the tape. She had drilled _The Raven _into his mind, and _Demon in My View_.

He had asked her why she loved the poems so much and why he was making him listen to them. She had turned her lavender gaze on him and her eyes were unreadable. Not hard, yet not soft. Not angry, yet not happy. Not hating, yet not loving. It was just _was_ as she always was.

"Because I am what he writes about," she whispered to herself, and then she looked up at him. "If you know these, you know how I feel. Doesn't _Demon in my View _related to me all to well?" He nodded, remembering her father that was in her mind.

"Quoth the Raven Nevermore," she whispered, and the conversation was closed, for he was teaching her how to weld.

Cyborg slipped the key into a small black box and closed his hand around it. He still felt guilty about not buying her anything good. She already drove the car... once in a while, when he was forcing her to learn how to drive it. She preferred moving in the form of a shadow raven. Flying through the sky and shielding the people below from the harsh sun.

He walked down the hall, towards 'the room' as he called it. But then he heard a soft muttering. He pressed his ear to enhance the sound.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos," was being chanted with deep breathing was gently coming behind it. He knew that it was Raven for the voice was deeper than Starfire who had started to meditate along with the half demon in her spare time.

_What is she doing in her room?_ He wondered, and went to knock on the door. His fist boomed as it hit the door, and he regretted having doing so. He didn't like disturbing Raven. It was dangerous, for him and her.

"Starfire, for the last time," Raven said from behind the door, but she stopped just as she opened up the door and saw Cyborg standing there presenting a small box.

Raven had been expecting Starfire to come and plead with her to let her meditate with her, or to ask is Raven liked her gift, yet another time. In fact she would have expected anyone over Cyborg, even Beast Boy who had forgotten about her birthday.

"What?" she said, her voice cracking, and her eyes emptying. She didn't let them wander to the box that her friend was carrying.

"Did I say happy birthday yet?" Cyborg said, smiling. Raven smiled weakly in return, and looked up at his red eye.

"You did," she said simply. She let her eyes wander now down to the little box. Cyborg saw them fall, and he placed it in her hand.

Slowly she opened it, and saw the key lying on the white background of the box. Raven felt her eyes widen, and she stroked the key with her middle and index finger. She closed her eyes, and kept the picture of the key in her mind.

"Is this to" but she was cut off by Cyborg's sharp nod. He smiled down at her and shrugged.

"You helped build her," he muttered, and rubbed the back of his neck. "So now you have to drive her." Raven shuddered at his words, and he laughed at her, told her that they would go on a drive later, he needed to eat, and she was obviously busy.

"I like it better than the bracelet," she said to herself, and he heard.


End file.
